as in slavery
the state of being an enslaved person
the Fugitive Slave Act had the effect of returning enslaved people who had made it to freedom in the North to a brutal life of servitude in the South
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Recent Examples of servitude
And taken alongside the failure of Prop. 6, which would have ended involuntary servitude in prisons, Prop. 36 was taken as a signal that Californians attitudes toward crime are changing.
—
Annika Merrilees, Sacramento Bee, 16 Jan. 2025
This is part of a national move to ban involuntary servitude in states whose constitutions still indicate the practice is legal.
—Anabel Sosa, Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 2024
Unlike the definition of indenture servitude, in which someone works for a single employer without pay, visa holders may change employers and are paid.
—David Faris, Newsweek, 28 Dec. 2024
The Black community’s relationship with growing food is colored by exploitive practices, from slavery to sharecropping, tenant farming and peonage, or debt servitude.
—Lyndsay C. Green, Detroit Free Press, 27 Nov. 2024
See All Example Sentences for servitude
Annika Merrilees, Sacramento Bee, 16 Jan. 2025
This is part of a national move to ban involuntary servitude in states whose constitutions still indicate the practice is legal.
—Anabel Sosa, Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 2024
Unlike the definition of indenture servitude, in which someone works for a single employer without pay, visa holders may change employers and are paid.
—David Faris, Newsweek, 28 Dec. 2024
The Black community’s relationship with growing food is colored by exploitive practices, from slavery to sharecropping, tenant farming and peonage, or debt servitude.
—Lyndsay C. Green, Detroit Free Press, 27 Nov. 2024
See All Example Sentences for servitude
Cite this Entry
“Servitude.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/servitude. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
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